Migrating Visual Basic Applications to the .NET Platform
Migrating to the .NET platform has been under serious discussion ever since Microsoft launched its newest series of products under much hyped vision statements. Visual Basic.NET is one of the key products that enable application development under the new vision. However, VB.NET is not quite backward compatible with prior versions like Visual Basic version 6. This makes migration a serious issue. This article looks at possible reasons that one would choose to migrate, and outlines certain important issues to be considered when such a migration is attempted.
The first question that strikes ones mind is "why should I migrate ?" Managed Code is a very important feature of the .NET architectural framework. This is what makes Java applications robust when compared to older generation Microsoft applications. VB.NET code targets the Common Language Runtime (CLR) by compiling into an intermediate language, which is then executed under strict control (managed). CLR manages the code in a very similar fashion to the Java model, thereby making applications much more Robust, Stable and secure. The application also becomes more maintainable because of the managed code.
Under the .NET framework, VB.NET applications are packaged as self-contained, self-describing, versioned assemblies (collection of classes and meta data). One can deploy, remove and manage N different versions of an application or DLL on the same machine without creating conflicts.This enables a product company to easily manage versions and upgrades without causing the headaches so common with usual upgrades orOEM-versioning....
